Jordan de Souza

First Kapellmeister

Jordan de Souza has been the Komische Oper Berlin’s Kapellmeister since the 2017/18 season. The up-and-coming conductor has made a name for himself both in his native Canada and abroad. Alongside his work with the Bregenzer Festspiele, he regularly conducts with the Canadian Opera Company, the Opéra de Montréal, the Orchestre Métropolitain, and the National Ballet of Canada in Toronto. Alongside the restagings of Eugene Onegin, The Magic Flute and Petrushka/L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, his celebrated interpretation of Pelléas et Mélisande was one of the highlights of the 2017/18 season. Soon to follow are restagings of Il barbiere di Siviglia and Don Giovanni, and a symphony concert featuring works by Tchaikovsky and Schreker.

Jordan de Souza was born in Toronto, Canada in 1988 and studied conducting and organ at McGill University. By the age of 25, he had already conducted all of Bach’s oratorios. In 2015, the Canadian Broadcasting Company named him one of “CBC’s Top 30 Classical Musicians Under 30”.

Recently, de Souza has attracted attention with Verdi’s Requiem with the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, and with world premieres of M’dea Undone and Rocking Horse Winner, a collaboration between the Tapestry Orchestra and the Scottish Opera. He was a resident artist at the renowned Banff Centre in Alberta (Canada) and at the Franz Schubert Institut in Baden bei Wien. Other engagements have taken him to the Houston Grand Opera, the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy and the Accademia Filarmonica Romana.